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Graphs - Time Series & Trends
Ohio has under-funded need-based student aid for decades, but policy initiatives from two years ago have made the problem more acute than ever.
Ohio's independent colleges held the line on tuition increases this year, compared to their peers in the Midwest region.
Facing their first drop in overall enrollment in a quarter century, Ohio's independent colleges and universities continue to seek innovative ways to help meet the state's goal of higher degree attainment despite drastic cuts in state-funded financial aid and a fallout in high school graduates.
The small increase in need-based financial aid in the current state budget only begins to repair the recent damage to Ohio's commitment to the higher education of its neediest citizens.
New federal projections continue to predict a significant drop in the number of Ohio public high school graduates in the next decade.
Bachelor's degrees in STEM fields awarded in Ohio have grown 20 percent in the last decade.
To obtain well-paying jobs in demand by employers, college education is increasingly necessary, and particularly bachelor¹s degrees, as nearly all the expansion in jobs needing just an associate degree is in one field, nursing.
Faculty and staff at Ohio's independent colleges -- more than 30,000 strong -- contribute increasing amounts to local economies each year.
By the end of fiscal 2010, endowments at Ohio independent colleges had rebounded only slightly from their low point in FY2009, and half of AICUO members¹ endowments were valued at $21.1 million or less.
The repeal two years ago of the Student Choice Grant, which supported Ohioans attending in-state independent colleges, eliminated a key incentive for students to stay in their home state for their education.
In its recently enacted budget, the state of Ohio kept the Ohio College Opportunity Grant alive, but could not return its level of support for needy students to its level of just three years ago.
The state of Ohio budget now under consideration by the state Senate gives a larger share of the state's higher education budget to student financial aid in the next two years.
Ohio's independent colleges continue to increase their investment in financial aid from their own resources. This commitment has more than doubled in ten years, and more than tripled over 12 years.
Unlike at the state's public and independent nonprofit colleges, the share of expenditures dedicated to instruction at Ohio's for-profit colleges has fallen over the last decade.
Newly proposed changes in the Ohio College Opportunity Grant for the next two academic years will cut the state's support for its poorest students attending independent colleges by nearly two thirds over this year, and nearly seven eighths over just three years.
Over the 25 academic years ending in 2019-20, the gap between women and men in bachelor's degrees awarded in the US will have nearly tripled.
This drop is even higher - 13 percent - when measured against the peak of high school graduations in the state, which was just two years ago.
in six years, the number of degrees awarded in teacher education in Ohio has dropped by nearly one in four.
Even the fall 2009 spike in Ohio community-college enrollment - which followed the lifting of the two-year tuition freeze - can be accounted for, like most of the recent past, by a change in the state's unemploymnet rate.
The independent sector's steady growth remains a key in improving the educational attainment of Ohio's citizens.
By redistributing its higher education funds to limit public-campus tuition increases and simulataneously slash need-based aid, the state of Ohio more than tripled the out-of-pocket tuition at the public baccalaureate campuses for its poorest citizens.
This fall, the gap between Ohio's public sector enrollment and the headcount needed to keep pace with the state's 10-year enrollment goal grew slightly.
Recent data is consistent with Ohio's longstanding conundrum: Its population is better educated that the nation's at the the high school level, but less well educated at the bachelor's degree level.
The nation's public colleges and universities are catching on to something that independents have been focusing on for years: using grant aid from their own resources to meet student need.
New data show that Ohio's ninth graders remain more likely to enroll in college than their counterparts around the nation.
This fall's enrollment increase - the independent sector's 24th consecutive year of growth - is the largest since fall 2003.
Another benefit of a better-educated citizenry is behavior correlated with better health.
While a growing percentage of younger adults in Ohio and in the nation as a whole are in college or graduate school, the share of older adults continuing their education still lags.
No one is proud of the number of students who default on their student loans, especially those shown here who default within two years of leaving college, but there is considerable variation within higher education sectors.
Although bachelor's and advanced degrees are not required for nursing practice, the number of these degrees has skyrocketed over the last decade.
Young women not only are more likely to have finished their bachelor's degrees, but to have continued to master's and higher degrees.
As larger numbers of younger women enter and complete graduate school, their overall share of those with advanced degrees have rapidly increased.
Although relatively stable, the share of freshman classes who are Ohio residents has fallen slightly since the high point in the fall of 2004, at both public and independent four-year campuses.
As the new fiscal year starts, Ohio's commitment to the higher education of its neediest citizens continues to shrink.
Ohio State’s major effort to “enhance the quality of its undergraduate student population”* — using millions of dollars in merit aid and recruitment expenditures to raise the ACT scores of entering freshmen — props up the sector-wide rate of on-time bachelor’s degree completions at Ohio’s public universities. Even so, Ohio State and the public sector lag behind the independent sector in this important success measure. * “Ohio State 2008: Bridging the Excellence Divide,” by the OSU Enrollment Management Committee
Final enrollment figures confirm the continued enrollment increases in Ohio's nonprofit higher education institutions.
Endowment losses cost AICUO member campuses more than $250 million in spendable revenue over the last two fiscal years.
Women have been a sizeable majority of the bachelor's degree recipients in Ohio for two decades, but graduating classes of men are now 18 percent larger than they were in 2001-02, increasing their share of the awards.
In the 2008-2009 academic year, Ohio's independent colleges increased the amount of student aid they gave from their own resources by 8.1 percent.
Graduation rates continue to hold steady at Ohio independent colleges, despite the economic and other pressures facing students.
Major cuts in financial aid and other higher education infrastructure resulted in a precipitous falloff in support this year to Ohio's public and independent colleges and universities and their students.
Over the long term, women have earned a growing share of bachelor's degrees in the "STEM" - science, technology, engineering, and mathematics - fields. However, the growth has been unevenly distributed among the STEM disciples.
Ohio's commitment to its neediest college students will continue to shrink in the next academic year.
In the last decade, independent colleges awarded 28,281 bachelor's degrees in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics, 35 percent of Ohio's total.
In the last decade, external causes appear to have overwhelmed the effect on income usually expected from the increase in the number of Ohioans who have earned at least a bachelor's degree.
Although a small group for now, speakers of Spanish, whether born here or elsewhere, represent Ohio's fastest-growing demographic, now totaling more than 300,000 residents.
For the first time in this decade, more than half of entering first-year students in 2009 secured "aid that must be repaid" - i.e., loans - to support their college education. For more information, visit the Freshman Survey section of the Higher Education Research Institution at the University of California at Los Angeles: www.heri.ucla.edu.
In the decade of the '00s, bachelor's degree production at Ohio's independent colleges has grown by 20 percent, and overall degrees by 25 percent.
The recent upsurge in Ohio public campus enrollments is largely concentrated at two-year campuses - namely community and technical colleges and local university branch campuses.
Actual graduations from Ohio public high schools have, so far, been somewhere between the various federal projections. This leaves some question whether the expected long-term rebound from the most recent projection will actually occur.
Lifting the tuition freeze appears not to have damaged Ohio’s public-sector enrollments for now, but the full effect will not become evident until announced tuition increases become effective in the winter or spring. The lion’s share of the fall increase was at the two-year campuses — community college headcount jumped by nearly 17% and branch campus headcount by more than 11% over fall 2008.
New federal projections continue to predict a significant drop in the number of Ohio public high school graduates in the next decade. However, a slight rebound is forecast toward the end of the period, a welcome change from prior models.
The strength of Ohio's independent colleges is evident from the 1.6 percent increase in enrollment - the 24th year in a row - during difficult economic times that include major cuts in state students financial aid.
Women already make up an increasing share of students at higher education institutions, and projections for the next decade point toward this trend continuing.
Cuts in need-based student aid in Ohio threaten the state's continued improvement in college participation among its low-income residents.
The financial commitment of Ohio’s independent colleges to their own students has nearly tripled over a ten-year period.
In the four-year sector, Ohio's independent colleges lead the way to success for nontraditional students.
Colleges around the state are now scrambling to help this fall's students, many of whom face thousands of dollars in state financial aid cuts.
Ohio independent colleges and universities have been able to educate increasing numbers of students from their home state, thanks to state programs such as the Student Choice Grant. The future with much more limited funding is cloudy.
American increasingly recognize that college education is essential to success.
New adjusted figures from the U.S. Department of Education show continued growth in Ohio's independent colleges this past academic year - despite the many challenges our sector faces.
In 20 years, the value added to the paycheck by having a bachelor's degree over a high school diploma has increased more than 25 cents on the dollar.
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